I was willing to take a chance: Vasuda Sharma

I was willing to take a chance: Vasuda Sharmawith big success

While pursuing a course in music at the Berklee College of Music, Boston, an institution known for its multicultural demography, singer Vasuda Sharma decided to make the most of her stint there. “I had formed a band while studying at Berklee last year, so I thought of booking a studio and recording some of the songs we played during my stay there. When I got back to Mumbai, I decided to record more songs here,” says Sharma.

The result was a pop-folk fusion album titled Attuned Spirits, a collaborative project featuring 30 musicians from 11 countries. However, putting together this ambitious project required more than just determination and passion. “When I realised I had taken up a big project and needed a lot of funds to finish it, I ended up putting in all I had, yet that wasn’t enough to do it the way I saw it,” says the singer-songwriter, who is a popular name in the city’s indie music circuit. Most people would remember her as a member of the pop band, Aasma, known for its hit, ‘Chandu ke chacha’.

She launched her campaign on crowd funding website, wishberry.com and raised Rs5.72 lakh to fund the recording, mixing and mastering of her album. “I was willing to take a chance and it also served as one of the ways to validate what I was doing. We are all scared of failure and starting such a campaign in a country like India where the concept of crowd-funding is new to people, this was indeed a challenge. But surprisingly, I got a lot of support from the music industry too,” says the singer who recently released the video of one of the songs, titled ‘Maajhi’.

She is currently on tour to promote the album with her band that comprises Zohran Miranda (guitars), Andrew Ferrao (keyboard), Rahul Hariharan (drums) and Chirayu Vedekar (bass). They will be performing at an Andheri venue on November 13.